Introduction
For years the only rules on retouched listing photos were MLS policies and general advertising law. That changed in 2026. California has a statute written for digitally altered property images, Wisconsin has one taking effect in 2027, New York's Department of State has warned agents and its legislature has two bills in committee, and the EU AI Act applies transparency duties to AI imagery used in European listings. This article says what each rule requires, which listings it covers, and what the original photo has to look like when a rule asks for one. It describes the rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Check the current text of each law and your MLS policy before relying on it.
Why regulators stepped in
Generative editing tools made it trivial to regrow lawns, refinish facades and furnish empty rooms. Buyers noticed and started posting side-by-side comparisons of listings and reality. The scale became measurable in June 2026, when the compliance vendor Coraly published a study of about 40,000 primary listing photos on the four large US portals: 10.8% showed signs of alteration, more than nine in ten of those carried no visible disclosure, and 69% of the alterations were replaced skies. Interiors were altered far less often, about 4.5% of interior images. Two limits on those numbers: they come from a vendor's detector, not from alterations counted by hand, and they cover only the first photo of each listing. Even so, the pattern every rule below responds to is the same. An altered image must say that it was altered, and where the rule goes further, the truthful original must be reachable.
California: disclosure, a link, and the original in the listing
California acted first. Assembly Bill 723 added Section 10140.8 to the Business and Professions Code, in force since 1 January 2026. It applies to advertising for the sale of real property by a broker or salesperson, or anyone acting on their behalf. Three duties sit in the statute and the MLS rules built on it.
The disclosure. An altered image must carry a statement that it has been altered, and the statement has to say that the unaltered image can be seen at the link, URL or QR code. It has to be reasonably conspicuous and located on or adjacent to the image itself. A note buried in the agent remarks does not satisfy the statute, and neither does a bare "digitally altered" with no mention of where the original is.
The link. The advertisement must include a link to a publicly accessible internet website, URL or QR code that includes, and clearly identifies, the original, unaltered image. This is the statutory form for brochures, brokerage websites, social posts and any other place the altered image appears outside the MLS.
The original in the posting. Where the advertisement is on a website the broker or salesperson controls, the disclosure and link apply as everywhere, and the posting must in addition include the unaltered image; the statute lets that be met by the same public link. The large California MLSs go further for listing media: CRMLS (rule 11.5.2), San Diego MLS and Bay East require the original photo uploaded immediately before or after the altered image, with the alteration labelled in the photo description field. A link does not replace that upload. For an MLS listing the original is a photo in the media set; the link and QR cover everywhere else.
Enforcement runs through the Department of Real Estate, and violations of the Real Estate Law carry the usual penalties. Commentary on the bill agrees it creates no new private lawsuit, though an undisclosed alteration strengthens an existing misrepresentation claim. The licensee stays responsible even when a photographer or staging vendor produced the image.
What counts as altered
The statute exempts the adjustments every listing photo gets: lighting, sharpening, white balance, colour correction, angle, straightening, cropping and exposure, provided they do not change the representation of the property. The MLS guidance reads exposure blending, the multi-frame merge behind most interior photos, as standard editing of the same kind. What triggers the duty is a change to the property as shown: an added or removed object, a replaced sky, a greened lawn, a repaired roof, furniture in an empty room. Virtual staging remains permitted for furniture and decor if disclosed; CRMLS's advertising rules do not allow it for walls, fixtures or power lines. Concealing the physical condition of the property is misrepresentation regardless of any label.
Rentals: not yet, and pending
AB 723 covers sale advertising only. A companion bill for rental advertising, AB 2025, passed both houses in late August 2026 and, as of 19 September, is with the Governor, whose deadline to sign or veto is 30 September. If signed, it carries the same disclosure-and-link structure to rental listings. New York City is on the same path: the Mayor's July 2026 rental report announced a Department of Consumer and Worker Protection rule requiring clear and conspicuous disclosure that rental listing photos were digitally altered, to be enforced with the listing platforms. Neither is in force at the time of writing; this section will be updated when either changes.
Wisconsin: disclosure from 2027
Wisconsin's 2025 Act 69, enacted on 9 December 2025, takes effect on 1 January 2027 and applies to advertising for one-to-four-unit residential property. A licensee must disclose in all advertising if it "has been altered or modified using technology, including artificial intelligence, to add, remove, or change elements of the property that creates a false or misleading impression of the property." Two things distinguish it from California. There is no originals requirement: Wisconsin asks for a disclosure, not a link to the unaltered photo. And the act carries a good-faith safe harbour for licensees who did not know an image was altered. Agents working in Wisconsin have 2026 to build one habit: know, for every image in a listing, whether it was altered.
New York: two bills and a warning
New York has no statute yet. Its Department of State issued a trend alert on 13 November 2025 saying that misleading or exaggerated AI-generated listing images can violate the existing duty to present an honest and accurate depiction of a property, so enforcement under general misrepresentation rules does not wait for a new law. Two bills are in committee. Senate bill S.9584 requires disclosure of digital representations in listings and sets a misrepresentation standard. Assembly bill A.11635, introduced in summer 2026, goes further: disclosure of digitally altered images in advertising for sale or lease, and the unaltered version of the image included in the website posting. If A.11635 passes, New York becomes the second state to require the original, and the first to require it for rentals. The next session opens in January 2027.
The EU rule for European listings
Agents marketing property in the EU face a different instrument. Since 2 August 2026, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires anyone who deploys an AI system to generate or manipulate an image of a real place to disclose that the content was artificially generated or manipulated. The Commission's guidelines read that as a disclosure a person perceives at first exposure; a provider's invisible watermark or metadata mark alone does not discharge the deployer's duty. Virtual staging, sky replacement and defect removal by an AI tool are widely read as falling within scope. Manual retouching without an AI system is outside the AI Act and inside national advertising law, which in Germany means the UWG's prohibition on misleading commercial practices. Our article on the EU AI Act and C2PA covers the European framework in detail.
What an original has to be, and what a checked original adds
Read together, the rules create three practical duties for an agent: know which images were altered, label those images visibly, and where California's rules apply, make the unaltered original reachable and put it in the listing.
The originals question has a practical answer in the MLS guidance. The San Diego MLS tells photographers that the original is a semi-finished image, colour-corrected, cropped and straightened, and that it is neither practical nor reasonable to expect untouched RAW files. The alteration is done on a copy, and the photographer delivers both. That is what goes into the MLS.
What nobody in that chain checks is whether the original is original. A photographer who holds the camera's RAW file can show it. Lumethic compares one camera frame, the RAW, against the JPEG developed from it and records whether the two match within tolerance, together with the date of the check and the date and camera model the file recorded. The checked JPEG and the report stay on a public page anyone can open without an account; the RAW is used for the comparison and is not shown there. For each original that verifies, the photographer can download a badge version of the photo with the check date stamped on it and a reference code on a strip below. For a listing, the page link (or a QR code made from it) or the badge version is the statutory link form for brochures, social posts and the brokerage site, while the plain original goes into the MLS, and it adds a sentence the MLS upload cannot: the original the agent posted has been checked against the camera file.
Two limits belong next to that sentence. A merged interior, blended from several exposures, is not one camera frame; Lumethic checks the frames behind it and shows the merged image as the marketing image, not checked. And "matches within tolerance" is not "unaltered": small edits can sit inside the tolerance, so the photographer's own disclosure of what was changed stays beside the check. The delivery workflow, which frame of a bracket to nominate as the original, and how to bill the check are in Delivering AB 723 originals, written for photographers and the agents who hire them.
Conclusion
Disclosure duties for altered listing photos are no longer hypothetical. California enforces disclosure, a link and the original in the listing now; Wisconsin requires disclosure from January; New York enforces general advertising law today and may require the original next; the EU disclosure duty applies to AI-manipulated images already. Agents who wait for their MLS to force the issue will retrofit a workflow under pressure. Agents who ask their photographer for checked originals now meet the rules with one extra line on the invoice, and can show a buyer a photo that has been checked rather than one that is merely labelled.
Disclosure rules FAQ
Do I have to disclose every edited listing photo? It depends on the edit and the jurisdiction. Routine corrections such as exposure, white balance, cropping and straightening are exempt in California and are not the target elsewhere. Edits that change what the property looks like, including AI enhancement, object removal, replaced skies and virtual staging, are what the rules cover. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is virtual staging still legal? Yes, in every jurisdiction discussed here, provided it is disclosed. California additionally requires the unaltered original to be reachable and, in the MLS, uploaded beside the staged image. Staging that conceals the property's physical condition is treated as misrepresentation rather than staging. Check your MLS's rules on which elements may be staged.
Does a link to the original satisfy the California MLS rules? No. The large California MLSs (CRMLS, San Diego MLS, Bay East) require the original photo itself in the listing media, immediately before or after the altered image, with a label. The link or QR code is the statutory form for the altered image everywhere outside the MLS: brochures, your website, social media, email.
Does California's rule apply to rentals? Not as of 19 September 2026. AB 723 covers sale advertising. AB 2025 would extend the same duties to rental advertising and is awaiting the Governor's decision; New York City has announced plans to require disclosure of altered rental-listing photos. This answer will be updated when either takes effect.
Can a buyer sue over an undisclosed alteration? The statute creates no new lawsuit; enforcement is through the Department of Real Estate. An undisclosed alteration can support an existing misrepresentation claim. A buyer who finds an altered image with no original can ask the agent, the broker, the MLS or the DRE. None of this is legal advice.
What does a checked original show? That the delivered JPEG matches the camera's RAW file within tolerance, with the check date and the camera's recorded date and model, and nothing beyond that: not the location, not the ownership, not whether the property still looks like this. The section above on what a checked original adds sets out the two limits that matter for a listing.
